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Published in Daily Times / Saturday, August 20, 2011
Published under the title: Back from the Future

Author(s): Imrana Maqsood and Amra AlamReviewed by: Afrah Jamal

The two people present at the book reading session that day are from the small town of Badayun. And they are afraid — afraid that the new generation might find it difficult to relate to their experiences. Or that they might get spooked by the choice of language (Urdu) — or fail to appreciate the underlying message. As the evening commenced, it became increasingly clear — such fears were unjustified.

Though they parted company with India some 50 years ago when their family migrated to Karachi, Pakistan — a part of Imrana Maqsood and Amra Alam stayed behind in their beloved Badayun. The other part grew up to be a successful playwright and an equally successful children’s book author. Karachi Halwa Aur Badayun Ke Pairay is a slim little concoction based on their sweetest childhood memories.…

Sana Bucha's article (Jul 17 2011) 'When Incredibles Sulk' vs. The Economist (14 Jul 2011) : 'Pakistan and America In a Sulk'. Not everyone agrees that this is a case of plagiarism even though it seems pretty clear-cut. Am posting an old forgotten piece inspired by a similar case (several in fact).

As the debate on what constitutes ‘Plagiarism’ rages on amongst many, clearly the line between ‘research’ and plagiarism appear to be blurred. That the plagiarized piece is subject to copyright and demeaning to self and publication when discovered seldom affects the ‘amoral’ or will never deter an ‘immoral’.

Perhaps some do not recognize it as a crime. There are several types of plagiarists; Ignorant, indifferent and irresponsible. They commit unintentional plagiarism in their ignorance, through indifference do not cite sources and because of negligence alter the content by paraphrasing wrongly. While a lot can be found on this subject on the internet, yet here I am, on…

A local writer once recounted a story where he happened to be on a mailing list that was bombarded by dozens of kindly e-mails from an Indian peer. They were all roughly the same, each disparaging his — the writer’s — (imperfect) nation, its military missteps, defective political/social setup, extremist hideouts; anything and everything was fair game. The one-sided exchange continued till, one day, the writer from the imperfect nation diverted the conversation to a little known resistance movement called the Maoist insurgency.

The emails stopped.

Someone else, having taken a random combination of words such as challenging the writ of the state, unrest in the tribal areas, military operations, insurrection, IEDs, peace talks, collateral damage and fundamentalists, typically designed to decode the blueprints of neighbouring insurgencies, has unexpectedly used it to o…